S04.E06: Spin the Bottle

[Joe Hellandback]

SPIN THE BOTTLE

The Good; All of it, easily one of the best episodes of season 4, obviously with a debt to Buffy's Tabula Rusa but with a delicious spin of it's own. Unlike 'The Shroud of Rahmon' the framing device of Lorne with an invisible audience is terrific, he even breaks the 4th wall. If there is a favourite moment I think it would be CC declaring Fred as 'all neck' and Fred giving the 'mother of all shrugs'.

The Bad; Only thing I can find wrong is that the commentary is not as good as you'd hoped despite having Joss and Alexis. Again though wouldn't Liam notice his lack of heartbeat etc?

Best line: Gunn; "What happened to you man?" Wes; "I had my throat cut and my friends abandoned me"

Apocalypses: 5

Angel Clichés In disguise; 8

DB get's his shirt off; 12

Cheap Angel; 5

Fang Gang in bondage: poor Lorne gets taped Cordy: 5 Angel: 12 Wes: 6 Gunn; 4 Lorne; 5 Fred; 2

Fang gang knocked out: poor Lorne againx2 plus Gunn Cordy: 12 Angel: 15 Wes: 5 Doyle; 1 Gunn; 2 Lorne; 6 Groo; 1

Kills: Gunn says he's been killing vamps since he was 12 . He threatens to cut Lorne's head off although we actually know that wouldn't kill him. Another vamp for Connor who is starting to catch his old man up. Cordy: 6 vamps, 3 demons Angel; 41 vamps, 57 and 1/2 demons, 8 humans Doyle; 1 vamp Wes; 12 demons+3 vamps, 2 humans Kate; 3 vamps Faith; 16 vamps, 6 demons, 3 humans. Gunn; 11 vamps+ 12 demons. Groo; 1 demon Fred; 3 vamp+ 1 demon Connor; 9 vamps and 2 demon

Fang Gang go evil: Cordy: 2 Angel: 2 Gunn; 1 Wes; 1

Alternate Fang Gang: teenage everyone Cordy: 4 Angel: 10 Fred; 2 Wes; 1 Gunn; 1

Characters killed: 46

Recurring characters killed; 8;

Total number of Angel Investigations: Angel, Gunn, Fred, Lorne

Angel Investigations shot: Angel: 11 Wes; 1

Packing heat; Wes; 6 Doyle; 1 Angel; 3 Gunn; 1

Notches on Fang Gang bedpost: Cordy: 4 ?+Wilson/Hacksaw Beast+Phantom Dennis+Groo Angel: 5; Buffy, Darla and The Transcending Furies Wes; 3; Virginia, the bleached blonde and Lilah Gunn; 1 Fred Fred; 1 Gunn Groo; 1Cordy

Kinky dinky: Wes' projecting stake and Fred's fear of aliens probing her helpless naked body. Liam is all for the sinful desires. Connor get's felt up by a hooker and CC promises to sleep with him if he kills Angel. CC is delighted with her bountiful adult breasts, Fred disappointed she seems not to have much. CC says 'Hello salty goodness' when she sees Liam which is exactly what she said about Angel when they first meet. CC in her towel. She thinks that danger makes her hot, she said the same about Xander and her in 'Dopplegangland'. CC thinks Angel is deviant because he didn't try anything with her.

Captain Subtext; CC thinks Gunn and Wes wrestling is homoerotic. CC wonders how Wes got the title 'head boy'? Note CC treats Fred EXACTLY as she treated season 1 Willow.

Know the face, different character; 4

Parking garages; 6,

Guantanamo Bay; Liam is alarmingly racist (as indeed is Keith Topping in his book) both against Wesley as an Englishman and Gunn as a slave. Ironically he later comments that people are ganging up upon him because he's different and he accuses THEM of being hypocrites. CC comments that she know's who's president and wishes she didn't. Weird, I'd have always thought of her as a right wing girl. Gunn suggests that if something looks wrong it should die which is a lot different as to how he thought in 'That Old Gang of Mine'.

Buffy characters on Angel; 16 Wetherby, Collins and Smith. Angel, Cordy, Oz, Spike, Buffy, Wes, Faith, Darla, Dru, The Master, Anne, Willow and Harmony

Questions and observations; Fred is a cannabis smoker. Maybe it doesn't make you dumb after all? Liam thinks the cars outside are demons which is exactly what C17th noblewoman Buffy thought in Halloween. Interestingly Wes refers to the Watcher's academy being in Hampshire which means

Spoiler

it may have survived Caleb's attack on the London base and helps Buffy&co in season 8.

Interestingly Angel doesn't trust magic, much like Connor. Wes is very Bond as has been commented on before. Gunn's fears that he's just the 'muscle', the BA Barracus? (Ken Lerner is in The A-team so in 1) of AI once more come to the fore. Interesting to see him as an angry young man just as we saw in 'Double or nothing'. Some funny mocking of Angel's very poor Irish accent although still better than that terrible kid on Glee (Neil Patrick Harris is in HIMYM with AH so in 2). Gunn votes that they don't put Wes in charge, a ref back to 'There's no place like plze grb'. Note that when Gunn goes for a weapon he instinctively selects his hubcap axe even though he's amnesiac. Note also Fred fondles the palms, Illyria later able to mind meld with them.

Lorne smokes again. Even though he's his teenage goof self Wes is still heroic, pitting himself unhesitatingly against a vamp to save Fred and CC and quite a good leader. Lorne tells Fred 'look into your heart' which is the famous line from 'Miller's Crossing', the greatest gangster film ever (Gay Byrne is in Enemy of the State with Seth Green so in 2). Our first glimpse of The Beast.

Marks out of 10; 10/10 stunning

[Spartan Girl]

"I got my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me."

SHUT UP WESLEY. JUST SHUT UP. You went behind your friends' backs and got Connor kidnapped by the enemy over a bogus prophecy. Stop pretending like your butt-sore feelings absolves you ruining Connor's life and messing with Fred and Gunn's relationship. Own up to your mistakes and get over yourself, you whiny egotistical prick.

[Joe Hellandback]

19 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

"I got my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me."

SHUT UP WESLEY. JUST SHUT UP. You went behind your friends' backs and got Connor kidnapped by the enemy over a bogus prophecy. Stop pretending like your butt-sore feelings absolves you ruining Connor's life and messing with Fred and Gunn's relationship. Own up to your mistakes and get over yourself, you whiny egotistical prick.

Come on! You have to feel for Wes, one of the greatest things about Buffy/Angel is you can see both sides in virtually any dispute they have, I sympathise with Wes over what he did but I also feel for Angel losing the only son he'll ever have. It's more a question of what Gunn, Lorne and Fred do. I wonder if things would have been different if CC was around? 

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Come on! You have to feel for Wes, one of the greatest things about Buffy/Angel is you can see both sides in virtually any dispute they have, I sympathise with Wes over what he did but I also feel for Angel losing the only son he'll ever have. It's more a question of what Gunn, Lorne and Fred do. I wonder if things would have been different if CC was around? 

I'd sympathize with Wesley more if he stopped playing the victim and took responsibility for what he did. As for the others, I frankly can't blame Lorne for not supporting Wesley after he bashed him over the head rather than confide in him; I was shocked Lorne DID try to talk Angel into forgiving him even once. I also can't blame Fred and Gunn for feeling angry because he went behind their backs.

[MerelyAFan]

This all leans into headcanon, but I think with Wesley, the events of the Price might have set him in his ways as far as his outlook. Angel's anger in Forgiving and the likes of Fred being upset with him in Double or Noting were understandable given how fresh the kidnapping by Holtz occurred. However Gunn coming to him just to get his help with no interest at all in hearing his side of the story (with no indication that anyone else wanted to either) could have convinced him that it wasn't just their pain keeping them away but a deliberate choice to disregard him entirely regardless of anything he had to say. 

At that point he might have concluded that apologies or any sort of direct appeal were useless at that point since they wouldn't have listened to begin with. So between that, Connor coming back alive alleviating some of his guilt, and a colder personality to shield himself from the hurt, you basically get Wesley in season 4. He does look for Angel for months, researches Cordelia's disappearance, and apparently was following Fred's work, so clearly he hadn't abandoned them despite any claims he makes to Lilah. He gives Fred help in Supersymmetry (though that's very self interested motive wise) and immediately agrees to Lorne's request for the helping with Cordelia's memory spell. However selfish he might be in not apologizing, he clearly does care and help the gang even though there's no real indication (Angel's rather non committal "we're okay" in Deep Down aside)  that it will change anything between them. 

At its core I think its pride, which is true to his character throughout this and Buffy. Even though I believe in his heart Wesley knows he committed the worse act comparatively, I think there's an inability to get past his bitterness that no one reached out to understand his actions. He'll help when asked and will always look at for them in one way or another, but in his mind there's no point to an apology towards people who are uninterested and won't acknowledge what they did to him. Not a very decent or upstanding attitude, but its the vibe I get. 

 

Spoiler

Given that Angel never really apologizes to him for trying to kill him, I wonder if that's Wesley's own justification for the rest of the season for not doing so himself. 

Edited November 13, 2018 by MerelyAFan

[Joe Hellandback]

20 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I'd sympathize with Wesley more if he stopped playing the victim and took responsibility for what he did. As for the others, I frankly can't blame Lorne for not supporting Wesley after he bashed him over the head rather than confide in him; I was shocked Lorne DID try to talk Angel into forgiving him even once. I also can't blame Fred and Gunn for feeling angry because he went behind their backs.

Folks in the Buffyverse knock one another out all the time! It's not like other people don't go behind one another's back in AI although maybe that's still to come?

15 hours ago, MerelyAFan said:

This all leans into headcanon, but I think with Wesley, the events of the Price might have set him in his ways as far as his outlook. Angel's anger in Forgiving and the likes of Fred being upset with him in Double or Noting were understandable given how fresh the kidnapping by Holtz occurred. However Gunn coming to him just to get his help with no interest at all in hearing his side of the story (with no indication that anyone else wanted to either) could have convinced him that it wasn't just their pain keeping them away but a deliberate choice to disregard him entirely regardless of anything he had to say. 

At that point he might have concluded that apologies or any sort of direct appeal were useless at that point since they wouldn't have listened to begin with. So between that, Connor coming back alive alleviating some of his guilt, and a colder personality to shield himself from the hurt, you basically get Wesley in season 4. He does look for Angel for months, researches Cordelia's disappearance, and apparently was following Fred's work, so clearly he hadn't abandoned them despite any claims he makes to Lilah. He gives Fred help in Supersymmetry (though that's very self interested motive wise) and immediately agrees to Lorne's request for the helping with Cordelia's memory spell. However selfish he might be in not apologizing, he clearly does care and help the gang even though there's no real indication (Angel's rather non committal "we're okay" in Deep Down aside)  that it will change anything between them. 

At its core I think its pride, which is true to his character throughout this and Buffy. Even though I believe in his heart Wesley knows he committed the worse act comparatively, I think there's an inability to get past his bitterness that no one reached out to understand his actions. He'll help when asked and will always look at for them in one way or another, but in his mind there's no point to an apology towards people who are uninterested and won't acknowledge what they did to him. Not a very decent or upstanding attitude, but its the vibe I get. 

 

  Hide contents

Given that Angel never really apologizes to him for trying to kill him, I wonder if that's Wesley's own justification for the rest of the season for not doing so himself. 

We never do have that reconciliation scene between the 2, perhaps the closest we have is the little nod

Spoiler

they give to one another in the final ep. 

[MerelyAFan]

2 hours ago, Joe Hellandback said:

Folks in the Buffyverse knock one another out all the time! It's not like other people don't go behind one another's back in AI although maybe that's still to come?

We never do have that reconciliation scene between the 2, perhaps the closest we have is the little nod

  Hide contents

they give to one another in the final ep. 

Spoiler

There is a line in 5x07 from Angel to Wes which suggests if not outright forgiveness, that he at least finally does understand Wesley's reasoning for what he did. (Because the memory spell was still in effect, the latter of course doesn't pick up on it). 

"You do what you have to do to protect the people around you. To do what you know is right, regardless of the cost. You know, I never really understood that. You're the guy who makes all the hard decisions, even if you have to make 'em alone."